BIOLOGY, 
LIBRARY 


LETTERS   OF   A  LUNATIC, 


A  BRIEF  EXPOSITION   OF  MY  UNIVERSITY  LIFE, 


DURING    THE     YEARS     185  3—5  4 , 


0.    J.    AI3LER,    A.M., 

PROFESSOR    OF    GERMAN    LITERATURE     IN    THE    UNIVERSITY  OF    THE    CITY  OF    NEW-YORK, 

MEMBER    OF    THE    AMERICAN    ORIENTAL,    AND    OF    THE    AMERICAN 

ETHNOLOGICAL     SOCIETIES,    &C.,    &C. 


Spectatum  admissi  risum  teneatis,  amici  ? 

Horat.   Ars  Poet.  v.  5. 


vv  TOI  oil  xpaiffug  ffKrjifTftov  KOI  dre^a  SeoTo  I 

Iliad  I.  v.  28. 


PRINTED    FOR    THE    AUTHOR. 

1854. 


PREFATORY  NOTE  TO  THE  PUBLIC. 

IN  a  recent  publication  on  German  Literature,  I  hinted  to  the 
reader  my  design  of  giving  an  account  of  an  event  in  my  personal 
history,  which  I  alleged  to  be  the  cause  of  an  absentment  from 
my  proper  place  of  study,  and  consequently  of  an  injustice  to  my 
public.  I  now  proceed  to  fulfil  my  promise,  by  offering  to  my 
personal  friends,  and  to  such  as  are  interested  in  matters  of 
academic  education  and  morality,  a  few  of  the  many  letters  writ- 
ten by  me  during  the  past  year.  I  might  have  added  others,  both 
of  an  anterior  and  of  a  more  recent  date.  The  question  however 
was  not  to  write  a  volume,  but  simply  a  brief  exposition,  of  a  page 
or  two  from  my  life  in  connection  with  a  public  institution  of  the 
metropolis,  and  thus  to  bring  a  matter  of  private  and  iniquitous 
dispute  before  the  forum  of  the  public,  after  having  vainly  sought 
redress  in  private.  My  main  object  was  of  course  to  vindicate 
and  defend  my  character,  my  professional  honor  and  my  most 
sacred  rights  as  a  rational  man  and  as  a  public  educator,  against 
the  invasions  of  narrow-minded  and  unjust  aggressors,  whose 
machinations  have  for  several  years  been  busily  at  work  in  sub- 
verting what  other  men  have  reared  before  them,  in  retarding  and 
impeding  what  the  intelligence  of  our  age  and  country  is  eager  to 
accelerate  and  to  promote.  The  much  agitated  question  of  Uni- 


versity  reform  and  of  the  liberty  of  academic  instruction,  which 
of  late  years  has  engaged  the  attention  of  some  of  the  best  intel- 
lects on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  and  which  within  a  month 
past  has  again  occupied  the  public  mind,  and  even  called  forth 
legislative  intervention  may,  however,  perhaps  likewise  receive 
some  additional  light  from  the  following  pages,  which  I  now 
submit,  not  from  any  motive  of  vanity,  or  from  the  expectation 
of  self-aggrandisement  or  of  histrionic  applause ;  but  from  a  sense 
of  duty  to  the  cause  of  liberal  culture  and  of  sound  morality, 
to  which  I  have  devoted  many  a  year  of  laborious  effort  and  of 
earnest  thought. 

NEW-YORK  UNIVERSITY,     )  Gr    J.   A, 

'  1854.  \ 


LETTER    I. 
/ 

NEW-YORK  UNIVERSITY,  SEPT.  10th,  1853.    _; 
REV.  ISAAC  FERRIS,  D.D. 

Dear  Sir, — I  deem  it  a  duty  of  justice  towards  myself,  as  well  as  to 
the  honor  of  the  Institution  of  which  I  am  an  officer  and  yourself  the 
newly-elected  head,  to  bring  to  your  consideration  a  few  circumstances 
from  the  history  of  our  incidental  intercourse  during  the  past  winter,  which 
at  the  time  of  occurrence,  struck  me  with  painful  surprise,  and  which  I 
cannot  suffer  to  pass  without  my  most  earnest  protestations. 

1st,  During  the  earlier  part  of  the  winter,  in  passing  out  of  my  lecture- 
room  one  morning,  I  met  you  in  the  hall  of  the  University  with  a  pale 
face,  asking  me  in  the  most  uncalled-for  and  singular  manner  the 
strange  question  : — "  Are  you  my  superior  ?n — The  reply,  which  I  ought 
to  have  written  on  the  spot  to  such  an  enquiry,  I  would  now  make  by 
saying,  that  such  an  idea  never  occurred  to  me,  and  that,  as  I  had  never 
seen  any  thing  of  your  presence  in  the  actual  performance  of  duty  in 
the  University  at  the  time  of  my  instruction  to  the  students,  such  an  idea 
never  could  have  suggested  itself  to  me.  The  question  of  superiority  or 
inferiority  being,  moreover,  of  a  relative  nature  and  one  that  (in  our  pro- 
fession) can  only  be  settled  by  actual  services  rendered  to  the  cause  of 
letters  and  by  actual  acknowledgements  obtained  in  a  proper  manner  and 
from  competent  judges,  it  would  be  folly  for  me  or  for  any  one  else  to 
attempt  to  place  it  on  any  other  ground  ;  and  for  that  reason  I  never  touch 
it,  although  I  am  always  ready  to  acknowledge  both  moral  and  intellec- 
tual superiority,  wherever  I  become  aware  of  its  existence. 

2d,  On  a  second  occasion,  I  met  you  by  accident  in  the  hall  before 
my  door,  when  to  my  equal  surprise,  you  informed  me  by  indefinite  mur- 
murs and  in  the  same  painful  half-way-utterance,  "  that  I  had  the  chapel" 
and  "that  I  was  in  the  next  church,"  pointing  to  Dr.  HUTTON'S.  This 
cannot  possibly  be  the  case,  as  I  am  not  of  your  persuasion  in  matters  of 


6 

religion,  and  if  I  am  to  communicate  any  instruction  in  the  Institution,  it 
must  be  done  in  the  usual  way. 

3d,  During  the  horrid  disorders  within  the  Institution  the  past  winter, 
I  repeatedly  heard  vociferous  declamations  in  the  adjoining  room,  and  at 
one  time  the  famous  words  of  PATRICK  HENRY  were  declaimed  by  Mr. 
BENNET  (I  think)  of  the  last  class  :  "  Give  me  liberty,  or  give  me  death  /" 
fearfully  emphasized,  and  your  own  voice  echoed  :  "Death you  shall  have  /" 
As  at  that  particular  time  I  underwent  the  crucifixion  of  college-dis- 
order, at  the  same  time  receiving  occasional  intimations  that  either  in 
my  speculations  or  in  my  instruction  /  was  going  too  far,  and  that  on 
that  account  it  was  necessaay  for  me  to  leave,  I  cannot  possibly  be  mis- 
taken in  supposing,  that  both  that  horrible  word  of  yours,  as  well  as  the 
frequent  scandalous  vociferations  were  intended  as  an  insult  for  me  ; 
(and,  if  that  is  so,  I  would  most  respectfully  beg  leave  to  reciprocate  the 
compliment). 

4th,  At  the  dinner  of  the  Alumni  my  attention  along  with  that  of  all 
the  rest  of  the  assembled  guests  was  directed  towards  you,  at  the  time 
you  rose  to  speak.  While  yet  standing,  you  turned  towards  me  with  a 
peculiar  expression  of  countenance  (which  I  beg  you  to  allow  me  to 
reciprocate)  and  in  an  under-tone  (distinctly  audible  to  me)  asked  the 
guests  of  the  opposite  side  of  the  room  (between  whom  and  yourself 
there  appears  to  have  been  a  collusion) :  Shall  I  have  to  become  the  step- 
father of  that  man  ?  and  again  in  the  same  tone  and  with  the  same  ex- 
pression of  countenance  :  "  Next  year  I  shall  see  another  man  in  that  man's 
place  /"  The  subsequent  exchange  of  salutations  over  Prof.  MARTIN 
was  ironical  on  your  part,  and  independently  of  the  rudeness  of  the  act, 
wholly  out  of  place.  No  one  else  present  was  treated  in  the  same  way. 
— In  regard  to  the  last  expression,  with  which  you  honored  me  on  that 
occasion,  I  would  say,  that  by  the  repetition  of  the  scenes  of  immorality 
and  disorder  of  which  this  building  was  the  theatre  (in  the  most  odious 
sense  of  that  term)  during  the  past  year,  such  an  event  might  be  pos- 
sible, not  however  without  some  troublesome  resistance  on  my  part  and 
the  prospect  of  another  change. — In  regard  to  the  first  question,  I  will  my- 
self take  the  responsibility  of  a  reply,  by  frankly  informing  you,  that, 
although  I  do  not  feel  the  slightest  inclination  to  question  the  respon- 
sible honor  of  your  office,  and  with  due  deference  to  the  reputation  for 
moral  integrity  (of  your  scholarship  I  have  never  seen  any  proof), 
which  must  have  secured  the  same  to  you,  I  nevertheless  most  empha- 
tically decline  such  paternal  supervision — having  for  many  years  past 
been  myself  of  full  age,  and  even  won  a  place  as  a  man  among  the  men 


and  scholars  of  our  land.  And  this  I  purpose  to  maintain,  whether  I  am 
in  the  University,  or  out  of  it.  I  must,  therefore,  beg  you  to  take  back 
the  offensive  words  at  the  next  dinner  as  publicly  as  they  were  uttered,  or  else 
I  shall  be  obliged  to  take  measures  in  defence  of  my  honor,  which,  pain- 
ful and  disagreeable  as  they  would  be  to  me,  would  nevertheless  be  a 
necessary  duty  of  self-protection.  As  for  my  peculiar  views  and  position 
with  reference  to  questions  of  scholarship  and  education,  I  have  under- 
gone no  change  of  opinion  whatever,  nor  could  I  undergo  one,  unless  it 
were  the  necessary  consequence  of  a  rational  conviction  ;  and  I  shall 
have  my  hands  full  for  some  years  to  come,  to  write  out  and  publish  what 
I  have  but  imperfectly  and  in  a  desultory  manner  indicated  in  my  lectures 
and  conversations;  and  while  I  am  convinced  that  in  many  respects  I 
have  (as  is  usual)  been  voluntarily  and  involuntarily  misunderstood,  I  am 
sure,  that  in  the  main  I  am  right,  and  entitled  to  a  hearing  or  a  reading, 
whether,  as  has  been  intimated  to  me,  I  go  too  far  or  not. — In  regard  to 
the  many  scandalous  interruptions  by  spectral  noises  (by  day  and  by 
night),  of  which  I  well  remember  the  chief  authors,  and  in  regard  to  my 
other  persecutions,  I  am  aware,  that  they  can  only  be  the  subject  of  com- 
miseration and  of  merited  contempt,  and  that  under  the  given  circum- 
stances, it  would  be  difficult  to  obtain  redress  or  justice.  I  shall,  how- 
ever, procure  some  legal  advice  on  the  subject.  Allow  rne,  in  conclusion. 
Sir,  to  assure  you  of  the  absence  of  all  hostile  personal  feeling  on  my 
part.  I  have  said  what  my  duty  imperatively  demands,  and  my  silence 
would  have  made  me  a  villain,  justly  liable  to  perpetual  abuse. 

I  am,  Dear  Sir, 

with   the   most  distinguished  consideration, 
Yours,  &c. 

G.  J.  ADLER. 


LETTER    II. 

NEW-YORK  UNIVERSITY,    SEPT.  12th,  1853. 
To  HIS  HONOR,  THE  MAYOR  ) 

OF  THE  CITY  OF  NEW-YORK.   ) 

' 

E'-r  Dear  Sir,- — I  deem  it  my  duty  as  a  citizen  of  New-York,  and  a 
member  of  a  literary  institution,  of  which  your  Honor  is  ex-officio  an 
officer,  to  apprize  you  of  a  fact  of  my  personal  history  during  the  past 
winter,  which  as  it  is  intimately  connected  with  the  maintenance  of 
social  order,  should  not  for  one  moment  be  passed  over  by  the  au- 
thorities of  the  municipal  corporation.  I  have  for  a  number  of  years 
past  been  connected  with  the  University  of  the  city  New- York,  first 
as  a  resident  graduate  and  lately  as  the  Professor  of  a  modern  lan- 
guage, and  have  ever  since  my  connection  with  the  institution  resided 
in  the  building  on  Washington  Square,  spending  most  of  my  time  in 
authorship  and  instruction  in  a  room,  which  for  several  years  I  have 
occupied  for  that  purpose.  In  consequence  of  some  bad  feeling  to- 
wards me  on  the  part  of  certain  enemies  of  mine,  who  of  late  have 
done  all  in  their  power  to  annoy  me,  the  quiet  of  my  residence  has 
been  disturbed  in  a  scandalous  manner,  by  day  and  at  all  hours  of  the 
night,  for  weeks  and  months  together,  so  as  to  inflict  on  me  the  tor- 
ments of  perpetual  interruption  not  only  in  my  work  during  the  day, 
but  of  rest  during  the  night,  until  my  health  was  completely  shattered ; 
and  in  this  miserable  manner  I  have  lost  nearly  the  whole  of  last 
winter'  without  accomplishing  any  of  my  purposes  with  satisfaction  or 
comfort.  This  outrageous  annoyance  has  been  the  source  of  severe 
loss  to  me  not  only  in  regard  to  my  health,  but  also  in  a  pecuniary 
point  of  view.  My  salary  in  the  institution  being  altogether  inade- 
quate for  my  support,  I  have  been  engaged  for  a  number  of  years 
past  in  preparing  works  for  publication,  and  this  winter  the  ruin  o* 
my  health  from  the  causes  already  mentioned  has  also  threatened  me 
with  the  ruin  of  my  income.  As  this  villainous  business  has  proceeded 
in  part  from  the  institution  itself,  or  rather  from  individuals  person- 
ally hostile  to  me  and  to  my  purposes,  I  deem  an  address  to  your 
Honor  so  much  the  more  in  place,  as  I  believe  it  to  be  officially 
your  duty  to  interpose  your  municipal  authority  in  matters  of  this  kind, 
and  to  reprimand  or  punish  men  for  the  immorality  of  so  flagrant  a 
disturbance  of  the  peace.  As  my  ears  have  almost  daily  been  wounded 
by  disorderly  noises,  not  only  from  students,  but  (and  mostly)  from  other 


9 

persons,  who  ought  to  blush  for  such  base  conduct,  I  cannot  say,  that 
I  am  unacquainted  with  the  authors  of  the  nuisance,  and  could  easily 
designate  to  you  at  least  half  a  dozen.  Such  cries  as  "  Go  on ! 
Stop  ! — Out  of  the  institution  with  that  man  ! — Kill  him  !"  besides  multi- 
tudes of  vulgar  chuckles,  screams  and  other  horrid  vociferations  have 
been  heard  by  me  from  well-known  voices,  until  at  times  I  felt  as  if 
I  could  support  the  vexation  no  longer.  Numberless  insults  in  the 
street  and  even  menaces  were  constantly  thrown  out  by  a  low  gang, 
who  were  evidently  hired  for  the  vile  purpose,  and  I  have  seen  things, 
which  I  never  witnessed  before  either  in  Europe  or  America.  A 
certain  firm  of  this  city  seems  to  have  commenced  the  nefarious  hosti- 
lities. I  have  suffered  encroachments  on  my  personal  safety  to  which 
no  American  citizen  ought  for  one  moment  to  submit.  As  I  cannot 
afford,  nor  feel  inclined  to  lose  my  time  and  health  any  longer,  I 
would  respectfully  submit  to  your  Honor's  consideration  my  claim  to 
the  protection  of  the  laws  of  the  city  in  this  respect,  to  which  as  an 
American  citizen  I  am  entitled,  and  the  necessity  of  a  sterner  main- 
tenance of  order  by  the  police  of  the  city.  Disagreeable  and  painful 
as  it  is  for  any  one  to  come  into  hostile  collision  with  fellow-citizens, 
there  are  nevertheless  cases,  in  which  such  enmities  may  be  innocently 
contracted,  and  holding  mine  to  be  of  such  a  nature,  I  may  confi- 
dently expect  the  ready  and  effectual  interposition  of  your  Honor  and 
of  the  honorable  members  of  the  Common  Council,  to  whom  the  order 
and  honor  of  the  city  must  ever  be  dear,  in  a  matter  that  seems  to 
me  to  involve  one  of  the  -most  cherished  principles  of  our  republican 
freedom,  viz.,  the  personal  safety  and  peaceable  domicile  of  every 
member  of  our  community,  of  every  citizen  of  this  vast  republic. 

To  sum  up  my  complaints  briefly,  they  are  as  follows  : — 1st,  Per- 
sonal hostility  towards  me  in  the  institution  itself;  2dly,  Horrid  foot- 
steps, noises  and  loud  conferences  under  my  window  by  day  and  by 
night ;  3dly,  Menacing  insults  from  low  people  in  the  street,  without 
the  slightest  provocation  on  my  part. 

Trusting  that  your  Honor  may  find  an  early  occasion  to  give  me 
an  opportunity  for  finding  my  firm  conviction  true,  that  the  majesty  of 
the  law  is  capable  of  being  upheld  by  its  representatives  in  the  com- 
munity, and  that  I  may  have  a  different  tale  to  tell  respecting  the 
morality  of  the  city  and  my  own  sense  of  personal  safety, 
I  am  your  Honor's 

most   respectful  and  obedient  servant. 

G.  J.  ABLER. 


10 


LETTER     III.--  (Answer  to  No.  I.) 
REV.  Dr.— 

Dear  Sir, — Understanding  that  you  are  a  friend  of  Professor  ABLER,  of 
this  University,  and  know  his  brother,  I  take  the  liberty  of  calling  your 
attention  to  his  present  condition. — During  the  last  winter  he  gave 
various  indications  of  a  disordered  mind,  and  these  have  become  more 
decided  during  the  past  summer.  I  am  distressed  to  see  his  haggard 
look,  and  have  feared  unhappy  results.  He  is  unfitted  for  the  business 
of  teaching,  and  his  friends  would  do  well  to  get  him  another  institution, 
adapted  to  such,  away  from  study.  I  think  there  should  be  no  delay  in 
the  matter. — We  all  esteem  Dr.  ABLER  highly,  and  would  be  delighted 
with  his  restoration  to  the  full  use  of  his  fine  intellectual  powers. 

May  I  solicit  your  fraternal  aid  in  this  case,  and  please  let  me  hear 
from  you  at  an  early  day. 

I  am  with  great  regard, 

Yours, 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CITY  OF)/CM-I\  T  T» 

NEW-YORK,  Sept.  19th,  '53.  \      (Slgned)  IsAAC  FERRIS" 


EPILOGOMENA    TO    LETTER    III. 

As  the  above  letter  was  handed  to  my  personal  friends  for  the  purpose 
of  conveying  the  desired  intelligence,  and  sent  to  me,  when  the  report 
of  my  illness  and  mental  derangement  was  found  to  be  groundless  and 
false,  there  can  be  no  impropriety  or  breach  of  courtesy  or  justice  in  its 
publication.  The  serious  consequences  to  which  it  gave  rise,  the  de- 
privation of  my  liberty  for  six  entire  months,  and  the  suspension  of  my 
functions  as  an  academic  instructor  (though  not  of  my  activity  as  an  au- 
thor, which  under  the  most  inauspicious  circumstances  was  still  con- 
tinued) alike  demand,  that  it  should  be  made  known  in  connection  with 
my  own  communications  before  and  during  my  imprisonment.  A  com- 
ment or  two  will  exhibit  the  contents  of  the  Doctor's  epistle  in  their 
proper  light. 

1st,  The  Dr's.  letter  is  itself  a  contradiction  and  an  egregious  symp- 
tom of  insanity  on  his  part,  which  is,  moreover,  confirmed  by  his  pre- 
vious conduct  from  his  first  entrance  into  the  institution.  In  comparing 
the  University  with  the  Lunatic  Asylum.  I  find  that  the  former  during  the 
winter  of  1852 — '53  (I  may  add,  ever  since  my  return  from  Europe  in 


11 

1850)  was  a  far  more  disorderly  and  irrational  place  than  the  latter, 
where  the  occasional  confusion  or  the  perpetual  (sane  and  insane)  per- 
versity of  men  is  the  lamentable,  but  natural  and  necessary  (consequently 
irresponsible}  result,  of  an  internal  physical  or  intellectual  disorder  or  de- 
fect, which  is  moreover  susceptible  of  classification  and  of  a  psycho- 
logical exposition,  while  in  the  former  it  was  "  got  up"  for  the  particular 
purpose  of  subjugation  or  of  expulsion,  and  where  consequently  it  was 
the  result  of  responsible  perversity  and  malice,  susceptible  of  moral  repro- 
bation. 

2d,  The  allegation  of  my  being  "unfitted  for  the  business  of  teaching,'1 
and  of  the  propriety  of  finding  me  "  another  institution,  adapted  to  such, 
away  from  study,"  is  an  absurd  and   a  libelous  perversion  of  the  truth, 
which  it  is  scarcely  worth  while  to  refute.     From  the  year   1839,  the 
year  of  my  matriculation  at  the  institution,  to  the  present  hour  I  have  had 
no  other  profession,  except  that  of  having  appeared  in  the  additional  ca- 
pacity of  an   author.     Even  during  my  undergraduate  career  I   taught 
successfully  the  various  disciplines  of  our  academic  course,  with  the  ap- 
probation and  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Faculty,  members  of  which  ex- 
amined and  admitted  to  promotion  several  of  my  private  scholars,  who 
had  been  expressly  referred  to  me  for  tuition  in  the   Classics,  in  Mathe- 
matics,  in   Philosophy,   &c. — Of   my  courses  of  instruction  since  my 
official  and  regular  connection  with  the  institution  (which  dates  from 
the  year  1846)  in  the  language  and  in  the  literature  which  I  was    more 
especially  appointed  to  profess,  it  is  not  necessary  to  speak  here,   the 
University  itself  having  offered  but  little  inducement  and  no  emolument 
or  honor  to  the  cultivation  of  the  modern  languages.      In  all  the  profes- 
sional  services,   however,  which   I  have  had   occasion  to  render  to  the 
institution  of  late  years,  my  qualifications  and  my  efficiency  could  never 
have  been  honestly  or  honorably  questioned.     I  have  prepared  my  own 
text-books,  which  have  found  their  way  into  most  of  the  literary  and 
educational  institutions   of  this   continent  to  some  extent  into   Europe 
even.     One  of  them  was  begun  at  the  very  time,  when  "  the  indications 
of  a  disordered  mind  had  become  more  decided,"  and  was  completed 
with  scarcely  a  day's  intermission  of  my  work  at  the   lunatic  asylum, 
where  I  subsequently  improved  my  leisure  (as  far  as  my  shattered  health 
would  permit)  by  zealously  engaging   in   some  preliminary  studies  for  a 
history  of  modern  literature. — It  is  equally  needless  to  expatiate  on  my 
extensive   acquaintance,  direct   and  indirect,  with  academic   men    and 
methods  both  in  the  United  States  and  in  Europe,  where  within   a  few 
years  past  I  spent  an  entire  year  in   the  pursuit  of  literary  and  philo- 


12 

sophical  studies  at  two  of  its  most  prominent  Universities. — To  my  mo- 
rality, both  private  and  social,  and  to  my  religion,  no  one  but  a  hyper-pu- 
ristic religionist  or  a  calvinistic  tyrant  could  possibly  object. — The  real 
objection,  and  the  cause  of  my  being  unfitted  for  the  business  of  in- 
struction must  therefore  be  looked  for  elsewhere.  From  various  indi- 
cations and  from  several  catastrophies  in  my  personal  history,  brought 
about  by  sectarian  jealousy  and  fanatical  intrigue,  from  certain  sig- 
nificant changes  in  the  faculty  of  the  institution,  and  from  innumerable 
efforts  to  subject  me  to  a  creed,  or  to  the  social  control  of  certain  re- 
ligious parties,  I  should  infer  that  it  manifestly  and  palpably  resided 
in  a  mistrust  of  what  is  vulgarly  termed  "  the  soundness  of  my  views" 
on  certain  questions,  never  discussed  in  respectable  literary  institutions, 
and  beyond  their  jurisdiction,  or  in  other  words  in  a  suspicion  of  heresy. — 
I  claim,  however,  in  opposition  to  all  these  pretentions,  which  I  deem 
an  absurdity,  my  right  (which  is  inalienable  and  imprescriptible)  to  my 
moral  and  intellectual  culture,  commenced  under  the  auspices  and 
fostering  care  of  my  Alma  Mater  herself  (during  a  former  administra- 
tion) and  continued  and  perfected  by  years  of  serious  and  earnest  effort 
in  America  and  Europe,  since.  I  recognize  no  sectarian  guidance  or 
control  whatever  in  any  of  the  independent  sciences,  cultivated  from 
time  immemorial  at  academic  institutions,  much  less  in  the  science  of 
sciences,  the  very  law  and  indispensable  condition  of  which  is  absolute 
freedom  from  all  external  authority  or  restraint.  The  law  of  intellectual 
freedom,  of  which  the  Reader  will  find  a  short  exposition  in  the  con- 
cluding document  of  this  pamphlet  (which  I  have  extracted  and  trans- 
lated from  a  distinguished  authority  on  the  "  Philosophy  of  Right")  is 
recognized  by  the  spirit  and  the  letter  of  the  Constitution  and  by  the 
political  and  social  history  of  the  United  States,  by  the  Revised  Sta- 
tutes of  the  State  of  New-York,  by  all  the  leading  universities  of 
Protestant  and  Catholic  Europe,  and  by  a  number  of  similar  institutions 
in  America,  among  which  stands,  "  professedly"  at  least,  the  Univer- 
sity of  the  city  of  New-York.  The  attempts  of  certain  parties  in  con- 
nection with  the  institution  and  ab  extra  to  "  smother"  (to  use  one  of 
their  own  cant  words)  and  to  crush  my  independence  by  gravely  en- 
deavoring to  coerce  me  into  an  alliance  with  a  questionable  religionism, 
which  is  abhorrent  to  my  ideas,  my  habits  and  my  sentiments,  and  by  foment- 
ing internal  disorders  for  the  purpose  of  effecting  an  exclusion,  are  an 
unconstitutional,  an  unjust,  an  iniquitous  invasion  of  my  most  sacred 
rights  as  a  man,  an  American  citizen,  a  scholar  and  a  professor.  I  repel, 
therefore,  Dr.  FERRIS'  insinuation  as  a  maliciously  astute  and  as  a 


18 

false  one,  which  of  itself  declares  the  Dr.  incompetent  to  decide  upon  the 
merits  of  a  real  scholar,  and  utterly  unfit  for  the  important  trust  of  pre- 
siding over  the  interests  of  any  other  but  a  sectarian  institution  of  the 
narrowest  description,  of  the  most  painfully  exclusive  moral  perversity. 

To  this  I  may  add,  that  in  consideration  of  the  many  and  various  dis- 
ciplines, earnestly  and  steadily  cultivated  by  me  for  several  years  past, 
such  as  intellectual  philosophy,  the  learned  and  modern  languages,  lin- 
guistics and  the  history  of  literature  generally,  I  could  in  academic 
justice  demand  the  right  to  instruct  in  any  one  of  the  departments  for 
which  I  was  fitted.  That  such  a  right  exists,  and  that  it  is  applicable 
to  my  case,  the  reader  may  learn  from  Sir  WILLIAM  HAMILTON'S. Essays 
on  University  Education,  recently  republished  in  America,  to  which  I 
refer  passim.  I  can  therefore  confidently  challenge  not  only  the  chan- 
cellor, but,  in  case  of  a  concurrence  in  his  sentiments,  the  entire  faculty 
of  the  University  to  the  following  proposition  : — In  case  my  capacity  to 
teach  or  lecture  academically  is  questioned,  I  propose  to  take,  and  I  de- 
mand one  of  the  following  chairs  ;  where  under  suitable  auspices  and 
with  proper  and  regular  provisions  for  the  maintenance  of  order,  I  could 
at  once  begin : — 1st,  The  Latin  language  and  literature. — 2d,  the  Greek 
ditto,  ditto. — 3d,  Moral  and  intellectual  philosophy,  either  systematically 
or  historically. — 4th,  History  or  the  general  history  of  literature  (of 
which  I  have  at  present  a  text-book  in  preparation). — 5th,  Linguistics 
or  the  classification  of  languages,  including  general  grammar. — 6th,  the 
history  of  modern  (European)  languages  and  literatures. — 7th,  the  ele- 
ments of  the  Sanscrit,  of  which  I  still  have  a  Mss.  grammar,  compiled  by 
myself  for  my  private  iise,  during  the  winter  of  1851. — I  omit  mention- 
ing the  remaining  academic  disciplines,  for  which  I  have  no  particular 
taste,  but  which  I  still  could  teach,  and  for  which  I  could  prepare  the 
text-books,  if  it  were  necessary  to  do  so. 

3d,  The  alleged  indications  of  insanity  were  utterly  unfounded  at  the 
time  they  were  made.  I  had  recovered  my  usual  health  and  spirits  im- 
mediately after  the  commencement  of  last  year,  about  the  beginning  of 
July  '53,  when  those  who  had  flagrantly  disturbed  the  quiet  of  my  resi- 
dence in  and  about  the  University  building  had  vanished  into  the  country. 
Of  the  winter  of  1852 — '53  I  only  recollect,  that  subsequently  to  the 
dismissal  of  my  class,  which  I  could  not  in  honor  consent  to  hear  any 
longer,  I  made  a  fruitless  attempt  to  continue  my  private  studies,  and  to 
finish  a  commentary  on  a  Greek  drama  which  I  had  begun  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  term,  and  that  the  ominous  symptoms  of  external  in- 
sanity about  me  soon  increased  to  such  an  alarming  extent,  that  I  was 


14 

forced  to  lay  aside  my  pen,  unable  to  endure  the  outrage  and  annoyance 
any  longer  ;  that  gangs  of  scandalous  ruffians  in  the  shape  of  boys, 
girls,  men  and  women,  many  of  whom  I  knew  by  their  voices,  kept  up 
at  certain  intervals,  by  day  and  by  night,  a  nefarious  system  of  mystifi- 
cation and  of  nuisance  from  January  to  the  end  of  June,  in  the  council- 
room  of  the  institution,  in  the  hall,  before  my  door,  in  front  of  my 
window,  and  on  the  parade  ground  ;  that  in  consequence  of  all  this  my 
rest  at  night  was  completely  broken,  until  I  could  only  sleep  by  day  ; 
that  after  a  while  I  was  confined  to  my  bed  most  of  the  time,  and  that  I 
frequently  did  not  rise  for  breakfast  till  6  o'clock,  P.  M. ;  that  it  was 
painful  and  disgusting  for  me  to  be  awake,  and  that  all  I  read  for  several 
successive  months  was  "  Hegel's  Logic"  for  two  or  three  hours  a  day, 
and  that  for  some  time  I  only  eat  once  a  day.  In  May,  I  think,  I  fled 
to  a  neighboring  State  and  University,  partly  with  the  intention  of 
changing  my  place  of  residence. — As  a  psychologist  I  was  well  aware, 
that  sleep  was  a  sovereign  preventive,  as  well  as  a  remedy  for  all  the 
disorders  of  the  mind,  especially  for  those  which  might  arise  from  ex- 
ternal causes  such  as  those  I  have  just  described ;  I  therefore  antici- 
pated and  prevented  the  unhappy  consequences  which  the  Dr.  seems 
to  have  expected  from  the  outrageous  nuisance  of  his  cherished  in- 
stitution, where  such  scenes  of  scandal  only  date  from  the  time  his  prospec- 
tive and  his  actual  entrance  on  the  duties  of  his  office,  and  really  seem  to  have 
been  made  to  order,  I  know  not  for  whose  benefit  (certainly  not  for  mine). 
During  the  summer  I  was,  in  consequence  of  the  happy  reaction  and 
repose,  unusually  gay  and  regular  in  my  work.  I  then  wrote  an  intro- 
duction to  Schiller's  Maid  of  Orleans,  another  one  to  Goethe's  Iphi- 
genia,  and  a  third  to  Tieck's  Puss  in  Boots,  all  of  which  have  since  been 
published  in  my  new  Manual  of  German  Literature.  I  deny,  therefore, 
having  ever  given  any  symptoms  of  insanity  whatsoever  at  any  time 
of  the  year,  while  I  admit  that  a  renewal  of  the  scandal  (which  the 
parties  concerned  have  endeavored  to  revive  since  my  release  this 
spring,  but  which  I  checked  by  a  speedy  notice  to  the  police  court  and 
to  some  of  my  friends),  in  the  autumn  might  have  led  to  such  calamitous 
results.  Neither  my  Kant,  nor  my  Rauch,  nor  my  Hegel,  nor  any 
other  philosopher  or  psychologist  could  for  one  moment  be  induced  to 
admit,  that  the  presence  of  external  causes  and  tendencies  to  intellectual 
derangement  were  necessarily  attended  or  followed  by  the  malady  itself. 
This  would  be  an  egregious  logical  fallacy,  to  which  no  intelligent 
physician  in  or  out  of  the  Lunatic  Asylum  could  for  one  moment  sub- 
scribe, without  justly  incurring  the  risk  of  Jbeing  charged  with  an 


15 

inexcusable  lack  of  professional  knowledge  and  experience  or  what  is 
still  worse,  with  a  criminal  connivance  at  an  unjust  and  inquitous  con- 
spiracy against  the  reputation  and  the  life  of  an  American  citizen. 
To  the  charge  of  the  folly  of  suffering  so  long  and  so  severely  from  so 
gross  a  system  of  disorder  which  might  have  speedily  been  checked 
by  the  extra-academic  authorities  of  the  city,  I  can  only  reply,  that 
the  confusion  and  the  consequent  embarrassment  was  so  great,  that  it  was 
impossible  for  me  at  the  time  to  come  to  any  decision  as  to  the  course 
to  be  pursued.  The  most  advisable  policy  would  have  been,  to  have 
left  entirely,  and  to  have  directed  the  correction  or  the  punishment  from 
a  distance.  The  following  letters,  written  from  the  Lunatic  Asylum 
(between  which  and  the  University  there  was  a  manifest  internal  harmony, 
and  which  was  evidently  commissioned  to  complete  the  work  of  humiliation 
and  of  subjugation),  may  serve  to  elucidate  the  facts  of  the  case  with 
some  additional  particulars. 

To  the  above  mentioned  causes  of  the  ruin  of  my  health,  I  may 
add,  that  during  the  same  winter  I  had  an  opportunity  of  witnessing  a 
resurrection  of  "  Salem  Witchcraft,"  practiced  on  me  by  a  certain  lady,  a 
mother  in  Israel  of  this  city,  who  was  manifestly  in  connection  with 
the  ultra-calvinistic  faction  of  the  University,  which  is  the  one  to  which 
Dr.  Ferris  is  indebted  for  his  elevation.  I  moreover  discovered  in  the 
same  connection,  one  of  the  two  sources,  from  which  the  low  insults  in 
the  street,  at  certain  well-known  hours  of  my  walks,  in  certain  places 
and  directions,  (to  which  I  made  allusion  in  my  letter  to  the  mayor  of  the 
city,) -had  emanated,  and  I  received  some  additional  light  on  certain 
events  of  my  personal  history,  to  which  I  allude  in  letter  No.  5. — 
A  father  in  Israel,  a  gray-headed  sinner  in  my  opinion,  likewise 
informed  me  that  they  had  the  Irish  to  defend  them. — I  venture  to 
assert  that  few  of  my  countrymen,  except  perhaps  the  lowest  rabble, 
would  ever  lend  their  aid  to  such  nefarious  purposes. 

From  all  that  I  have  had  occasion  to  observe  of  social  disorder  and 
discontent  in  the  city  for  several  years  past,  I  am  sure  that  there  are 
men  who  foment  intestine  commotions,  who  shamelessly  and  openly 
conspire  against  the  honor  and  the  interests,  if  not  against  the  property 
and  lives  of  their  fellow-citizens,  and  whom  the  State  ought  to  prosecute 
and  punish  as  offenders  against  a  clearly  defined  law  of  the  statute-book. 

My  sanity  at  the  the  time  of  arrest  I  can  establish : — 1st,  By  the  testi- 
mony of  those  who  saw  me  daily,  and  more  especially,  by  that  of  a 
young  man,  who  came  to  see  me  frequently,  after  the  reception  of  Dr. 
Ferris'  letter,  and  who  in  fact  brought  it  from  the  office.  2dly,  By  the 


16 

testimony  of  a  distinguished  physician,  who  about  a  week  before,  dressed 
a  slight  wound  on  one  of  my  eye-brows,  received  from  a  fall  against  my 
sofa  in  the  dark.  3dly,  By  the  fact,  that  I  was  quietly  and  constantly 
engaged  in  writing,  and  in  daily  communication  with  the  printer,  who 
stereotyped  my  "Hand-book  of  German  Literature."  Symptoms  of 
unusual  excitement,  in  consequence  of  such  an  outrage,  are  no  proof  of 
derangement. 


LETTER     IV. 

BLOOMINGDALE  ASYLUM,  Dec.  26th,  1853! 

To ,  Washington,  D.  C. 

Dear  Sir, 

For  several  years  past,  I  have  repeatedly  been  on  the 
point  of  making  an  effort  to  resuscitate  a  slight,  but  to  me  no  less 
cherished  acquaintance,  by  giving  you  some  account  of  my  doings  and 
purposes,  which,  I  have  sometimes  flattered  myself,  might  not  be  with- 
out interest  both  to  yourself  and  to  such  of  your  co-adjutors  in  Wash- 
ington, as  have  enlisted  with  you  in  the  noble  cause  of  extending  and  dif- 
fusing knowledge  among  men.  Of  the  proceedings  of  your  institution  I 
have  occasionally  informed  myself,  both  from  the  pamphlets  and  reports 
periodically  submitted  to  the  public,  and  more  especially  from  the 
volumes  of  regular  "Transactions,"  in  the  archaeological  and  linguistical 
parts  of  which,  I  have  taken  so  much  the  greater  interest,  as  of  late 
years  my  own  attention  has  at  times  been  almost  exclusively  directed  to 
the  same  field  of  investigation.  It  is  true,  I  have  as  yet  neither  been 
able  nor  willing  to  give  any  positive  result  of  my  studies.  I  have  hardly 
done  anything  more  than  "to  break  the  ice."  This,  however,  I  may 
safely  say  to  have  done,  having  not  only  had  the  best  opportunities, 
(since  I  saw  you  last  in  1848)  of  surveying  the  field  in  the  time-honored 
centres  of  intellectual  light  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  but  having 
also  since  my  return,  as  a  member  of  several  Learned  Associations,  had 
special  occasion  and  incitement  to  keep  alive  my  interest  in  these 
engaging  pursuits.  And  if  there  be  any  truth  in  the  ancient  adage : 
3f>X?7  v/io-w  iravT6s,  I  may  perhaps  even  entertain  the  hope  (non  invitd 
Minerva)  of  some  future  concentration  of  my  somewhat  desultory  ex- 
cursions in  these  regions  of  light  (where  ignorance  indeed,  but  ignorance 
alone,  sees  only  darkness)  to  some  radiant  focal  point.  There  are  a 
number  of  subjects,  closely  connected  with  the  inquiries,  that  come 


17 

under  the  cognizance  of  the  historico-philosophical  section  of  your 
institute,  which,  I  see,  are  agitated  anew  by  the  savants  of  the  old 
world,  and  which  to  the  resolution  of  certain  problems,  relating  to  the 
primitive  history  of  this  continent,  are  equally  important  here,  perhaps 
entitled  to  our  special  consideration.  Recent  investigations  would  seem 
to  show,  for  example,  that  our  genial  and  acute  Du  Ponceau  had  by  no 
means  said  the  last  word  on  the  subject  he  has  so  learnedly  reported. 
Several  new  works  on  the  origin  and  classification  of  languages,  that 
have  made  their  appearance  in  Berlin,  &c.,  since  the  day  of  Humboldt's 
attempt,  would  seem  to  invite  to  similar  efforts  on  our  side,  and  with 
special  reference  to  the  immensity  of  our  cis-Atlantic  field,  which  ought 
to  be  *<»r'  ifrxfiv  adopted  as  our  own.  Having  most  of  these  materials 
at  hand,  I  have  sometimes  been  tempted  myself  to  try,  whether  by  an 
exposition  of  the  present  state  of  that  science,  as  cultivated  by  the 
Germans  particularly,  a  new  impulsion  might  not  be  imparted  to  it 
among  ourselves.  Some  such  purpose  has  been  among  the  tasks,  which 
I  had  proposed  to  myself  for  the  present  winter.  The  sudden  sus- 
pension of  my  studies,  and  the  consequent  uncertainty  of  my  affairs, 
however,  have  so  seriously  deranged  my  plans,  that  now  I  almost  despair 
of  being  able  to  accomplish  any  of  my  more  immediate  and  necessary 
purposes. — You  will  undoubtedly  be  surprised  to  learn,  that  I  have  been 
an  inmate  of  the  Lunatic  Asylum,  at  Bloomingdale,  for  now  nearly  three 
months  ;  your  surprise  will  be  still  greater,  when  you  come  to  learn,  by 
what  sort  of  machinations  I  have  been  brought  here. 

For  several  years  past,  I  have  been  made  the  object  of  a  systematic 
and  invidious  persecution,  in  consequence  of  which  I  have  been  obliged 
to  shift  my  residence  from  one  place  to  another,  to  spend  my  means  in 
involuntary  exile  and  unnecessary  travelling,  and  altogether  to  lead  a  life 
of  a  discouraging  uncertainty. 

Shortly  after  my  visit  to  Washington,  (1848),  where  I  saw  you  last, 
I  was  driven  away  from  New- York,  while  yet  absorbed  in  the  midst 
of  an  arduous  undertaking,  (my  large  German  and  English  Dictionary, 
which  in  consequence  of  my  forced  removal  from  the  place  of  printing,  I 
had  to  finish  at  an  inconvenient  distance),  under  circumstances  of  the 
most  aggravated  insults  and  abuses,  (such  as  I  had  never  dreamt  men 
capable  of,)  and  about  six  months  after  its  completion  the  same  mise- 
rable clique  had  already  " finished"  me  in  Boston  and  a  regular  "hedjra" 
to  Europe  was  the  consequence.* — I  spent  a  year  in  London,  Paris  and 

*  The  details  of  this  scandalous  act  of  vandalism,  which  though  it  nearly  cost  me  my 
life,  I  did  not  even  mention  in  the  preface  to  my  large  German  and  English  Lexicon,  finished 

2 


18 

Berlin,  in  a  miserable  struggle  to  repair  my  shattered  health,  (I  had  a 
cough,  contracted  from  sheer  vexation,  while  in  the  clutches  of  the 
miserable  wretches,  who  seemed  to  be  determined  to  vex  me  out  of  exis- 
tence, which  clung  to  me  a  year  and  ever  and  anon  returns  again,)  and 
what  was  still  more  difficult,  to  forget  the  loathsome  reminiscences 
of  the  immediate  past  by  bringing  myself  in  contact  with  the  sanatory 
influences  of  the  literature  and  art  of  the  old  world  ;  partly  with  the 
intention  of  remaining  there.  I  returned,  however,  in  the  hope  of  find- 
ing my  difficulties  subsided.  But  the  same  odious  conspiracy,  which 
had  even  contrived  to  mar  my  comfort  and  happiness  in  one  place  on 
the  other  side,  (in  Paris,  where  I  spent  the  greater  part  of  an  academic 
year,  at  the  University  and  libraries,  in  various  studies,)  had,  as  I  found 
to  my  surprise,  kept  up  a  malevolent  espionage  over  my  peregrinations 
even,  and  I  have  since  been  subjected  to  a  series  of  vexations  and 
intrigues,  which  at  times  made  me  regret  that  I  had  not  preferred 
any  lot  in  a  foreign  land  and  among  entire  strangers  to  such  an  ignoble 
re-establishment  at  home.  A  personal  attachment  of  former  years  was 
made  use  of  to  harass  and  lacerate  my  feelings,  and  an  underhanded, 
venomous  persecution,  (which  the  parties,  who  were  the  authors,  and 
who  were  in  alliance  with  certain  ecclesiastical  tricksters,  did  not  even 
blush  to  own),  followed  me  at  every  step.  The  scum  of  New-York  in 

in  the  course  of  the  same  year,  are  too  diffuse  and  complicated,  to  be  noticed  here.  As  the 
leading  personages  of  this  drama,  however,  were  the  representatives  of  powerful  and  in- 
fluential ecclesiastical  organizations,  and  as  shortly  before,  repeated  and  desperate  proselyting 
efforts  had  been  made  by  some  of  these  men,  and  by  their  miserable  underlings,  I  cannot 
posaibly  be  wrong  in  designating  the  vile  commotion,  by  which  I  was  swept  from  my  post,  as 
the  venomous  explosion  of  ignoble  and  of  bigoted  elements,  which  have  in  fact  been  the 
prolific  source  of  all  the  confusion  I  complain  of  now.  I  distinctly  remember  the  treacherous 
and  inquisitorial  anxiousness  of  a  certain  (now)  president  of  a  prominent  University,  (with 
whom  I  was  reading  Logic,)  to  become  acquainted  with  German  metaphysics,  the  mysterious 
jm&etings  of  a  certain  ecclesiastical  committee,  the  efforts  of  a  certain  temperance  coterie  at 
ascertain  hotel,  and  a  dozen  other  despicable  conclaves  and  combinations,  whose  machina- 
tions wrere  too  palpable  to  be  mistaken  or  forgotten.  •!  also  know,  that  a  certain  philosophy 
to  w&ieh  I  was  known  to  be  particularly  partial,  is  looked  upon  with  jealous  suspicion  by 
certain. -superficial  and  insignificant  pretenders  to  that  science,  whose  ignorance  and  malice 
forges  weapons  of  destruction  out  of  the  noblest  and  sublimest  conceptions  that  have  ever 
emanated  freia  the  intellect  of  man.  To  all  these  ambitious  and  noisy  enemies  of  intellectual 
freedom,  wk&ste  littleness  asperses,  calumniates  and  levels  whatever  is  gigantic  and 
sublime,  I  wqtflfl  feere  say,  once  for  all,  that  if  they  could  but  rationally  comprehend  this 
•Goethe,  this  Jean  Paffil,  this  Fichte,  Kant  and  Hegel,  whom  they  regard  with  so  much 
horror,  itheir  moral  regeneration  would  almost  be  beyond  a  doubt,  and  if  they  could  think 
and  write  lite  them,  their  .title  to  enduring  fame  would  never  need  an  advocate  or  petty 
£rickstez  .to  defend  it.  ' 


19 

the  shape  of  Negroes,  Irishmen,  Germans,  &c.,  were  hired,  in  well- 
organized  gangs,  to  drop  mysterious  allusions  and  to  offer  me  other 
insults  in  the  street,  (and  thus  I  was  daily  forced  to  see  and  hear  things 
in  New- York,  of  which  I  had  never  dreamt  before,)  while  a  body  of 
proselyting  religionists  were  busy  in  their  endeavors  to  make  me  a 
submissive  tool  of  some  ecclesiastical  party  or  else  to  rob  me  of  the  last 
prospect  of  eating  a  respectable  piece  of  bread  and  butter.  This  odious 
vice  of  certain  countrymen  of  yours  was  in  fact 'the  prolific  source  of  all 
the  difficulties  I  complain  of,  and  it  is  remotely  the  cause  of  my  con- 
finement here. 

In  the  course  of  this  last^year,  however,  these  mano3uvres  assumed  a 
still  more  startling  and  iniquitous  shape  than  before.  Hitherto  my  domi- 
cile had  been  safe  and  quiet.  For,  although  meddlesome  attempts  had 
been  made  to  force  certain  associations  on  me  and  to  cut  me  off  from 
others,  I  had  still  been  left  sufficiently  unmolested  to  accomplish  some 
study  without  any  flagrant  interruptions.  This  last  resource  of  self-defence 
and  happiness  was  destoyed  me  at  the  beginning  of  last  winter.  New 
appointments  at  the  University,  (some  of  them  degradations  to  me,  at 
any  rate,  employed  for  humiliating  purposes,)  and  the  petty  jealousies, 
nay  even  animosities,  which  among  men  of  a  certain  order  of  intellect 
are  the  natural  consequence  of  such  changes,  soon  introduced  disorder 
into  the  Institution,  fostered  a  spirit  of  rebellion  against  me,  and  before 
the  end  of  the  first  term  of  the  present  year,  my  course  of  instruction 
was  entirely  broken  up.  The  difficulty  (which  in  fact  was  wholly  due 
to  a  shameless  inefficiency  of  discipline,)  was  enveloped  in  a  sort  of 
mummery,  the  sum  and  substance  of  which,  however,  was  plainly  this  : 
"that  if  I  remained  in  the  Institution  in  the  unmolested  enjoyment  of  a 
peaceful  life  of  study,  my  independent  progress  would  be  an  encroach- 
ment on  certain  colleagues  of  mine  ;"  and  this  was.  in  fact,  thrown  out 
as  a  hint  for  me  to  leave.  The  rent  of  my  private  room  in  the  building 

had  already  been  nearly  doubled  by  Prof.  J. for  the  same  reason. 

As  the  University,  however,  had  contributed  but  an  insignificant  item  to 
my  support,  I  neither  considered  it  necessary  to  remove  from  the  build- 
ing, which  is  accessible  to  all  classes  of  tenants,  nor  did  I  make  much 
account  of  a  self-made  suspension  of  my  course,  although  I  grieved  to 
think  of  the  means  that  had  been  used  to  superinduce  such  a  necessity. 
prof.  L -,  who  has  always  exhibited  a  pettiness  of  disposition,  alto- 
gether unworthy  of  a  man  of  science,  had  openly  before  my  eyes  played 
the  confidant  and  supporter  of  a  disorderly  student,  who  on  my  motion 
was  under  college  discipline,  and  the  meetings  of  the  faculty  were  made 


20 

so  disgusting  to  me,  that  I  could  no  longer  attend  to  make  my  reports. 
New  methods  of  annoyance  were  devised.  The  council-room  of  the  Insti- 
tution, next  door  to  mine,  was  converted  into  an  omnibus  for  noisy  meet- 
ings of  every  description — religious  gatherings  in  the  morning — ominous 
vociferations  during  recitation  time — obstreperous  conclaves  of  students 
in  the  afternoon — and  violent  political  town  gatherings  in  the  evening. 
Besides  all  this,  the  menials  of  the  Institution  were  corrupted  into  unu- 
sual insolence  towards  me,  (among  them  my  special  attendant,)  and  the 
vexations  of  this  description  became  so  annoying  to  me,  that  for  some 
time  I  had  actually  to  do  my  own  chamber-work.  I  had  almost  forgot- 
ten to  mention  certain  mysterious  c?esA>slammings  in  the  council-room, 
and  equally  significant  and  intimidating  Joor-slammings,  particularly  at 
a  room  opposite  mine,  which  communicates  (I  believe)  with  a  private  part 
of  the  building,  now  occupied  by  a  dentist,  (that  sublime  science  having 
also  found  its  way  into  our  college,)  at  unseasonable  hours  of  the  night, 
sometimes  accompanied  with  various  remarks,  one  of  which  now  occurs 
tome:  "Oh,  you  are  not  one  of  us !"  (sung  in  operatic  style.)  The 
quiet  of  my  residence  was,  moreover,  destroyed  by  horrid  vociferations 
at  all  hours  of  the  night  before  my  very  door,  and  regularly  under  my 
window,  and  these  were  made  not  only  by  students,  (of  which  there 
were  only  a  few,  supported  in  their  insubordination)  butby  an  extra-acade- 
mic body  of  men  and  women,  certain  zealous  religionists  and  their  im- 
penitent coadjutors,  evidently  the  abettors  of  my  in-door  enemies,  and  by 
two  of  my  colleagues.  A  night  or  week  of  such  proceedings  would  be 
enough  to  set  a  man  crazy.  What  must  be  their  effect  if  they  continue 
for  months  ?  And  yet  expressions  like  the  following  were  perpetually 
ringing  in  my  ears: — "Goon!"  "You  are  the  man!"  "You  are  not 
the  man  !"  " Go  on  !  no,  stop!"  (by  the  same  voice  in  the  same  breath.) 
u  Out  of  the  Institution  with  that  man !"  (by  the  laurelled  valedictorian 

of  last  year.)  4  "  Stand  up !"  (by  Prof.  C ,  close  to  my  door.)    "  He 

started  with  nothing !"  (by  the  same  voice  in  the  same  place).  "Pray!" 
(by  ditto.)  "You  have  finished !"  "Go  away!"  "Thank  God,  that 
that  man  is  out  of  the  Institution  !''  (by  a  lady  member  of  a  certain  re- 
ligious fraternity,  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  a  certain  prominent  politi- 
cian of  the  neighborhood.)  "  Pursue  him,  wprm  that  never  d-i-e-s !" 
(theatrically  shrieked  by  the  same  voice.)  "You  are  a  dead  man!" 
Dead,  dead,  dead,  dead !  (by  the  voice  of  a  certain  popular  preacher.") 
"  He  is  deceived,  he  is  deceived !"  (by  the  spokesman  of  a  body  of 
theological  students  in  front  of  the  neighboring  Seminary,  as  I  was  pass- 
ing.) And  at  times  even :  "Die!"  "Break I"  (on  the  supposition  that  I 


21 

was  in  embarrassed  circumstances.)  "  Whore  /"  even  was  one  of  the 
delectable  cries !  To  these  1  should  add  the  mysterious  blowings  of 
noses  (both  within  sight  and  hearing,)  frightfully  significant  coughs, 
horse-laughs,  shouts  and  other  methods  of  demonstration,  such  as  strik- 
ing the  sidewalk  in  front  of  my  windows  with  a  cane,  usually  accompa- 
nied with  some  remark:  "I  understand  that  passage  so!"  for  example. 
A  clique  in  the  Historical  Society,  (where  I  had  been  several  times  in- 
sulted at  the  meetings,)  and  several  religious  coteries  and  secret  organi- 
zations were  evidently  largely  concerned  in  the  business.  To  these 
noises  and  sounds  corresponded  an  equally  ingenious  series  of  sights,  so 
arranged  as  to  leave  no  doubt  whatever,  but  that  the  impressions  of  my 
sense  of  hearing  were  no  delusion,  and  that  there  was  no  mistake  about 
the  authors.  My  spirits  and  health  were  completely  shattered  by  the 
close  of  winter,  and  I  crawled  out  a  miserable  existence,  being  confined 
to  my  bed  most  of  the  time,  unable  to  do  anything  but  to  read  an  hour 
or  two  a  day.  The  summer  season  emptied  the  University  and  the  city, 
and  I  was  relieved  from  the  pressure.  The  repose  was  like  a  gift  from 
heaven.  A  stout  resolution  soon  consigned  the  terrors  of  the  past  to  a 
provisional  oblivion.  I  collected  myself,  recovered  my  usual  composure 
and  bodily  strength,  made  arrangements  for  two  additional  text-books  to 
my  series,  at  which  after  the  1st  of  July  I  began  to  work  steadily,  in 
the  hope  of  getting  out  of  my  pecuniary  difficulty  which  the  recent 
events  of  my  life  had  entailed.  One  of  these  is  now  ready  for  publica- 
tion and  will  appear  in  a  short  time.  After  I  had  fairly  recovered  the 
proper  balance  of  mind,  I  wrote  to  the  Mayor  of  the  city,  and  to  Dr. 
Ferris,  the  Chancellor  of  our  University.  To  the  former  I  complained 
of  persecution  ab  extra,  which  might  be  stopped  by  police  intervention, 
of  the  latter  I  demanded  explanations  for  personal  vexations  and  insults. 
Besides  having  connived  at,  nay  participated  in  the  disorders  of  the  In- 
stitution, and  besides  having  employed  the  menials  of  the  establishment 
to  enforce  a  ridiculous  submission  to  an  unconstitutional  authority,  the 
Dr.  had  in  the  presence  of  the  Alumni  of  the  Institution,  convened  at  a 
banquet  in  the  Astor  House,  openly  insulted  me  by  saying ;  "  Shall  I 
have  to  become  the  step-father  to  that  man  ?"  and  again  :  "  Next  year  I 
shall  see  another  man  in  that  mans  place  /"  Both  these  expressions 
were  used  by  the  Dr.  as  he  stood  before  the  assembled  guests,  while 
making  a  short  speech.  In  uttering  them,  he  looked  at  me  with  a  su- 
percilious grin,  and  the  question  was  addressed  to  the  opposite  side  of 
the  house,  between  which  and  the  speaker  there  was  a  manifest  collu- 
sion. My  letter  consisted  of  a  protestation  against  the  scandalous  disor- 


22 

ders  of  the  Institution  in  general,  and  a  request  that  the  Dr.  would  re- 
tract the  obnoxious  offer  of  an  unacceptable  paternity  as  publicly  as  it 
was  made,  to  include  also  a  recantation  of  the  words  :  *'  Death  you  shall 
have  /"  uttered  near  the  door  that  connects  my  room,  with  that  of  the 
Dr's.,  in  his  own  voice  and  in  connection  with  a  declamation  of  Patrick 
Henry's  famous  speech,  "Give  me  liberty  or  &c."  This  letter  of  mine 
was  answered  by  spectral  demonstrations  (not  unlike  those  of  ghost-rap- 
pers,) in  the  Chancellor's  room  (next  to  my  private  study)  between  11 
and  12  o'clock  on  the  night  after  its  delivery,  and  by  the  insolent  be- 
havior of  the  University  scullion,  who  on  the  following  day  after  many 
other  impertinences  told  me  :  "  You  must  not  speak  so  to  the  Chancellor, 
my  son  /"  No  other  reply  was  made,  and  no  further  notice  taken  of  my  com- 
plaint. And  yet  my  deportment  towards  Dr.  Ferris  had  never  been  disre- 
spectful, while  his  whole  course  towards  me  had  been  singularly  provoking 
and  offensive.  He  seemed  to  be  ignorant  of  the  fact,  that  I  was  both  an 
alumnus  and  an  officer  of  the  Institution,  and  that  as  such  I  expected  to 
be  regarded  in  the  light  of  a  gentleman  and  of  a  scholar.  By  ignoring 
my  protestations  the  Dr.  treated  me  like  a  freshman,  while  his  goings  in 
and  out  of  the  building  and  his  degrading  alliance  with  the  menials  of 
the  Institution,  who  were  the  accomplices  of  the  disorder,  gave  him  the 
character  rather  of  a  mechanic's  "  boss"  watching  over  an  apprentice 
than  of  a  dignified  president  of  a  respectable  literary  institution. 

I  had  by  that  time,  (the  middle  of  September  last,)  almost  wholly  re- 
covered my  health;  the  horrid  recollections  of  last  winter  having  been 
supplanted  by  the  amenities  of  my  summer  studies  in  solitude ;  and  I 
had  nearly  completed  one  of  the  new  text-books  I  had  agreed  to  prepare. 
A  week  glided  away — and  two — the  session  commenced — I  was  quietly 
engaged  in  my  own  business,  without  making  any  overtures  to  commence 
my  public  duties.  In  fact,  I  hesitated  about  commencing  at  all.  About 
the  first  of  October,  a  young  man,  a  nephew  of  mine,  brought  me  a  tele- 
graphic despatch  from  a  distant  city,  requesting  a  confirmation  or  denial 
of  the  report  there  circulated,  that  I  was  dangerously  ill,  unconscious  of 
myself,  &c.,  and  in  immediate  imperative  need  of  friendly  aid,  being  nei- 
ther mentally  nor  bodily  able  to  take  care  of  myself.  As  there  was  a 
mistake  in  the  name  of  the  enquirer,  I  considered  the  matter  a  hoax,  got 
up  .for  mischief  or  the  amusement  of  some  inquisitive  party,  and  retorted 
an  abrupt  telegraphic  :  " None  of  your  business,  sir!"  A  few  days  after, 

I  received  a  letter  of  complaint  from  my  brother-in-law,  of ,  stating 

that  the  telegraphic  enquiry  had  been  made  by  himself,  and  with  the 
kindest  regard  to  my  comfort ;  that  a  letter  from  Dr.  Ferris  to  a  brother 


23 

Divine  of  that  city  had  been  the  cause  of  the  sudden  consternation  among 
my  relatives  there.  The  Dr.'s  letter  was  itself  enclosed,  having  been 
surrendered  to  the  party  for  whose  benefit  it  was  composed.  In  this 
letter  the  Dr.  declares  me  incompetent  for  the  business  of  instruction,  al- 
leges, that  during  the  last  winter  I  had  given  various  symptoms  of  a  dis- 
ordered mind,  which  during  the  summer  had  increased  (?!!)  to  such  an 
extent,  as  to  give  serious  alarm  to  the  humane  feelings  of  the  Dr.,  and 
in  consideration  of  which,  he  advises  my  friends  "  to  take  me  at  once 
away  from  study,  to  some  institution  adapted  to  such." 

On  the  morning  of  the  receipt  of  this  intelligence  (the  5th  of  Oct.,  I 
think,)  I  had  just  arranged  my  papers  for  my  day's  work,  and  in  the  best 
spirits  and  in  excellent  health,  (deducting  a  cough  which  during  the  in- 
famies of  last  winter  I  had  contracted,)  was  about  to  begin  preparing 
some  copy  for  the  printer.  This  strange  way  of  answering  a  just  com- 
plaint and  grave  accusations  very  naturally  brought  back  the  recollec- 
tions of  all  the  contumelies  and  horrors  of  last  winter,  than  which  the 
reign  of  terror  has  nothing  more  startling,  save  perhaps  only  the  guillo- 
tine or  the  inquisition.  The  patience  of  Job  could  not  have  held  out 
any  longer.  I  went  at  once  in  search  of  the  Dr.,  and  finding  him  in 
conversation  with  Prof.  Loomis,  in  the  lecture  room  of  the  latter,  asked 
him  whether  he  had  written  the  letter  I  held  in  my  hands.  His  cool  re- 
ply in  the  affirmative  was  itself  an  insult,  made  as  it  was  in  a  manner, 
which  confirmed  my  previous  grounds  of  offence  and  the  impression, 
that  the  Dr.  would  not  remember  that  I  was  not  an  undergraduate  in 
search  of  a  step-father,  but  a  gentleman  and  an  officer  of  the  college. 
Impatience  and  anger  could  not  be  restrained,  and  I  told  him  that  he  was 

a and  a !  and  read  his  epistle  publicly  in  the  recitation-room 

of  one  of  my  colleagues,  and  in  the  hall  of  the  University,  at  the  same 
time  inveighing  in  somewhat  violent  terms  against  the  disorders  of  last 
winter.  The  result  was  general  amazement. — My  conduct  may  be  con- 
sidered too  hasty  by  many.  It  is  true  I  might  have  acted  more  rational- 
ly and  calmly.  As  it  is,  however,  so  flagrant  an  outrage  deserved  expo- 
sition, and  the  production  of  such  a  statement  made  after  such  provoca- 
tions is  not  only  a  justifiable  act  of  self-defence,  but  a  merited  punish- 
ment of  intrigue  and  falsehood,  which  I  shall  never  have  occasion  to  regret. 
Few  men  after  such  scenes  would  have  stopped  short  at  mere  words. 
From  the  "  Take  care  /"  of  Proff.  L. and  J. ,  (who  were  cri- 
minally involved  in  the  conspiracy  of  '48,)  I  inferred,  that  something 
was  coming ;  indeed,  I  myself  inquired,  whether  they  were  going  to  let 


24 

such  a  grave  matter  rest  without  notice,  as  they  had  done  with  all  my 
lenient  protestations. 

Two  days  after,  on  coining  home  from  a  walk,  I  was  arrested  by  two 
officers  of  the  police,  consigned  to  a  low  prison  for  several  hours,  and  with- 
out trial,  (which  was  said  to  be  over,)  and  without  any  legal  counsel, 
converted  into  an  insane  man  by  the  oath  of  two  physicians,  (one  of  them 
quite  a  young  man,)  who  pretended  to  found  their  opinion  on  an  exami- 
nation of  about  ten  minutes,  and  since  then  I  have  lived  among  lunatics 
in  the  asylum,  from  which  I  date  this  letter.  My  asseverations  arid  objec- 
tions before  the  justice  were  in  vain.  Dr.  Ferris  and  a  Wall-street  bro- 
ker cosily  persuaded  the  judga  in  my  presence,  "to  make  me  comforta- 
ble !"  I  have  since  finished  the  volume  I  had  begun,  though  my  absent- 
ment  from  my  library  obliged  me  to  leave  it  less  perfect  than  I  had  in- 
tended to  make  it.  For  this  purpose  I  was  rational  enough,  it  seems. 
I  venture,  moreover,  to  assert,  that  in  all  other  respects  (save  only  the 
obstinate  affirmation  of  the  reality  of  the  scenes  of  last  winter,  which  I 
am  absurdly  expected  to  deny,)  my  conduct  since  my  imprisonment  here 
has  been  found  to  be  that  of  a  man  in  the  full  possession  of  all  his  in- 
tellectual powers.  Nor  can  the  physician  at  the  head  of  this  institution 
conscientiously  confirm  either  the  sentence  of  the  judge,  or  the  affida- 
vit of  his  professional  brethren.  I  look  upon  it  as  perjury  and  a  mise- 
rable shift  to  evade  the  real  case  of  complaint,  if  any  there  be.  A  ra- 
tional trial  before  a  tribunal,  where  each  side  of  the  question  could  have 
been  produced,  would  have  been  the  part  of  honorable  men,  conscious 
of  their  own  rectitude,  and  of  the  justice  of  their  cause.  But  what  ag- 
gravates these  proceedings,  is  the  strange  expectation  that  I  should 
humbly  acquiesce  in  the^  supposititious  incriminatiori  of  having  been  too 
unsafe  to  be  left  at  large,  of  having  been  really  incapable  mentally  and 
physically  to  take  care  of  myself — and  the  still  more  singular  menace  of 
swearing  me  perpetually  crazy,  and  of  effecting  a  permanent  abridgment 
of  my  liberty,  in  case  I  should  attempt  to  defend  myself,  either  legally 
or  with  my  pen,  against  so  palpable  and  serious  infraction  of  the  dear- 
est rights  of  an  American  citizen.  The  scenes  of  last  winter,  of  which 
I  have  given  you  but  an  imperfect  outline,  which  were  got  up  for  the 
purpose  of  consolidating  the  power  and  preponderance  of  my  adversa- 
ries, aad  of  frustrating  my  efforts  to  defend  my  position  in  my  usual  way, 
i.  e.,  by  giving  positive  proof  of  rny  ability  by  actual  services  to  the 
cause  of  academic  education — these  scenes  of  scandal  and  of  terror  I  am 
expected  to  call  a  delusion  of  my  senses,  and  thus  to  falsify  my  personal 


25 

history,  accuse  my  consciousness  of  mendacity,  and  literally  to  aid  and 
abet  the  iniquity  of  my  aggressors. 

The  day  before  my  arrest,  I  was  solicited  by  a  number  of  students  to 
commence  my  course,  which  I  consented  to  do  by  the  beginning  of  the 
following  week,  and  as  this  year  I  had  already  the  proof-sheets  of  seve- 
ral disquisitions  on  German  literature  in  my  hands,  I  could  have  begun 
publicly  and  under  the  most  favorable  auspices.  But  it  would  seem  that, 
these  gentlemen  were  determined  that  I  should  not  begin,  and  that  they 
adopted  this  most  admirable  and  effectual  method  of  anticipating  my  per- 
fectly regular  and  legitimate  movements.  Indeed,  by  the  enquiry,  "  What 
are  you  going  to  do  .?"  I  have  already  been  desired  to  infer,  that  an  entire 
abandonment  of  my  profession  was  expected  of  me.  Its  exercise  had 
already  been  rendered  as  difficult  as  possible,  several  members  of  the 
Council  having  for  several  years  past  virtually  superseded  me  by  en- 
couraging two  other  men  on  the  same  spot,  which  I  in  all  honor  was 
entitled  to  occupy  myself,  and  which  contained  hardly  room  enough  for 
one.  What  would  Humboldt,  Grimm,  Ampere,  Burnouf,  and  some  of 
our  other  friends  on  the  other  side  of  the  water  say  to  such  proceedings? 
I  am  reduced  to  penury,  when  from  my  public  position  I  might  be  ex- 
pected to  be  independent,  I  am  deprived  of  the  liberty  of  academic  in- 
struction by  the  terrorism  of  a  narrow-minded  clique,  while  successfully 
and  diligently  engaged  in  adding  fresh  honor  to  my  post,  I  am  bereft  of 
freedom  altogether  by  men,  who  owe  their  power  to  the  fortuitous  con- 
currence of  local  and  sectarian  influences,  who  are  utter  strangers  to 
the  large  humanity  of  liberal  culture,  and  who  are  too  ignorant  to  decide 
upon  the  merits  of  a  man  of  letters,  being  themselves  destitute  of  both 
name  and  place  among  those  who  represent  the  literary  and  scientific 
enlightenment  of  our  age  and  country.  But  I  have  wearied  your  pa- 
tience already  too  long.  I  should  like  to  have  my  case  properly  under- 
stood at  Washington,  and  you  will  pardon  my  having  burdened  you  with 
so  much  of  the  detail.  In  regard  to  my  future  movements  I  am  uncer- 
tain. Supposing  even  my  liberation  to  be  near  at  hand,  it  will  be  diffi- 
cult to  commence  in  the  midst  of  winter  in  the  city,  where  all  educa- 
tional arrangements  are  made  in  the  autumn.  This  fact  was  well  known 
to  those  who  have  tied  my  hands.  Several  educational  works  I  am 
anxious  to  complete,  one  particularly,  at  which  I  was  interrupted  a  year 
ago  this  month.  .  I  am,  with  great  consideration, 

most  respectfully  and  truly 
Yours, 

G.  J.  ADLER. 


26 

LETTER     V. 

BLOOMINGDALE  ASYLUM,  Nov.  17th,  1853. 

My  dear  sir, 

In  reply  to  yours  of  the  12th  inst.,  I  can  say  what  I  might  have 
said  on  the  first  day  of  my  confinement ;  that  neither  the  chancellor  nor 
any  one  else  at  the  University  can  have  or  ever  could  have  any  appre- 
hension whatever  of  being  molested  by  me  in  any  place  or  in  any  man- 
ner whatever,  provided  they  mind  their  own  business  and  cease  to  give  me 
any  further  provocation.  The  Chancellor's  conduct  was  pre-eminently 
odious,  and  beneath  the  dignity  of  his  office.  His  letter,  which  I  still 
hold  in  my  hands,  is  as  ludicrous  as  it  is  false.  He  is  certainly  very 
much  mistaken  in  supposing  that  by  his  tiny  authority  he  can  so  easily 
crush  a  scholar  and  a  professor  of  my  reputation  and  "standing." 
"Proud  of  my  connection  with  the  University  and  anxious  to  secure 
my  co-operation,"  when  but  a  month  before  he  solicited  the  "fraternal 
aid"  of  a  distant  brother  divine  in  his  attempt  to  ship  me  out  of  the  city 
as  a  sick  man,  of  a  distempered  mind,  concerning  whom  he  was  most 
deeply  and  devoutly  concerned,  and  (what  is  still  more  strange,)  of  a 
man  whom  he  pronounces  "  unfitted  for  the  business  of  instruction  ?" 
This  is  his  own  language  and  this  is  the  whole  discovery,  the  denouement 
of  the  dirty  transactions  by  which  I  was  harassed  last  winter.  I  admit 
that  my  conduct  may  be  regarded  as  too  hasty.  I  might  have  defended 
myself  in  a  calmer,  more  dignified  and  more  effectual  manner.  As  it  is, 
however,  I  shall  make  no  apology  and  I  still  think,  that  a  month's  impri- 
sonment in  the  Tombs  or  a  severe  castigation  of  a  tangible  description 
last  winter  would  have  conferred  a  lasting  moral  benefit  on  certain  per- 
sons in  that  institution.  In  making  this  remark,  I  by  no  means  intend 
to  throw  out  any  menace,  nor  would  I  myself  like  the  office  of  Knout- 
master-general  either  to  his  imperial  majesty  at  St.  Petersburgh,  or  to 
his  excellency  the^Governor,  or  to  the  President  of  the  United  States ; 
but  I  refer  simply  to  the  moral  good  that  would  undoubtedly  have  accrued 
to  the  souls  of  certain  students  and  professors  at  the  University  during 
the  last  winter  from  a  dose  or  two  of  the  "good  old  English  discipline." 
As  to  the  infamous  and  unearthly  noises  that  worried  and  distracted  me 
for  at  least  six  months,  the  ruin  of  my  health  and  the  entire  suspension 
of  my  studies  were  too  grave  a  result  to  be  easily  overlooked  or  forgot- 
ten, and  the  ignoble  and  bigoted  clique  at  the  bottom  of  that  brutal  ter- 
rorism have  certainly  not  failed  to  leave  a  lasting  impression  of  their 


27 

power  on  my  mind.  No  denial  or  assurance  to  the  contrary  will  ever 
invalidate  the  evidence  of  my  senses.  What  I  saw  with  my  own  eyes, 
and  heard  with  my  own  ears  at  the  time  I  complained,  is  as  true  as  are 
the  phenomena  of  my  present  experience.  The  guillotine  alone  was 
wanting  to  cap  the  climax  of  those  high-handed  proceedings.  It  was  a 
repetition  of  the  same  narrow  vandalism  which  in  1848  exiled  me  out 
of  the  city,  and  in  1849  made  me  leave  America  in  disgust.  While  I 
therefore  disclaim  cherishing  or  ever  having  cherished  the  remotest  de- 
sire to  molest  the  peace  or  safety  of  any  member  of  the  faculty — the 
fear  of  corporal  punishment  betrays  a  bad  conscience  on  the  part  of  my 
adversaries  and  is  a  virtual  admission  of  their  guilt,  or  else  it  is  a  fiction 
invented  to  patch  up  a  hopeless  case  ; — I  would*  at  the  same  time  assure 
all  thoae  concerned  in  this  business,  that  I  am  not  an  advocate  of  non- 
resistance  or  of  tame  submission  to  such  a  gross  injustice,  and  that  in 
case  of  need  I  can  wield  a  pen  to  defend  my  rights  before  an  intelligent 
public,  the  opinion  of  which  in  matters  of  this  kind,  in  America  particu- 
larly, is  after  all  the  last  and  highest  instance  of  appeal. 

The  case  is  therefore  perfectly  plain.  I  deny  having  ever  given  any 
just  cause  of  apprehension  to  any  man  in  the  institution.  The  very  sup- 
position is  an  absurdity.  They  are  the  iniquitous  aggressors  throughout. 
They  have  to  endeavored  to  crush  my  intellectual  independence  by  car- 
rying the  principle  of  conformity  to  a  ridiculous  extent,  and  by  enforcing 
a  submission  to  which  no  man  of  honor  without  the  loss  af  all  his  intel- 
lectual powers  could  submit. — I  told  the  chancellor  on  the  spur  and  in 
the  excitement  of  the  moment  what  I  thought  of  the  falsehoods  contained 
in  his  epistle  and  of  his  previous  conduct  which,  if  he  is  a  gentleman, 
he  is  bound  to  justify.  He  gravely  ignored  the  letter  of  complaint  I  had 
addressed  to  him  a  month  before,  or  rather  answered  it  by  spectral  de- 
monstrations the  night  after  its  reception.  Such  mummery  and  such 
terrorism,  practiced  on  an  officer  of  a  literary  institution  by  a  fellow-of- 
ficer is  surely  out  of  place  and  Dr.  FERRIS  has  not  yet  learnt  (it  seems) 
the  meaning  of  an  A.  M.  and  of  certain  other  rights  of  Academic  men, 
(to  say  nothing  of  the  courtesy  customary  among  men  of  letters  of  every 
age  and  in  all  civilized  countries),  to  introduce  or  suffer  such  singular 
proceedings  in  a  respectable  institution.  As  for  myself  I  do  not  in- 
tend to  be  intimidated  in  the  least,  and  if  my  life  and  health  last,  I  shall 
find  the  means  of  defending  both  my  honor  and  my  position  as  a  gentle- 
man and  a  scholar.  It  is  all  idle  to  attempt  to  crush  or  gag  a  man  by 
terror.  The  humbug  of  the  spirit-rappers  is  no  greater  than  the  jugglery 
of  door-and-desk-slamming,  of  vociferations  and  mystifications  so  sue- 


28 

cessfully  employed  at  the  University  during  the  whole  of  last  winter. 
As  it  regards  therefore  my  alleged  insanity  on  these  points,  I  must  con- 
fess, that  if  a  denial  of  the  reality  of  this  terrorism  by  which  the  Uni- 
versity (and  certain  societies)  have  carried  on  their  nefarious  business  ' 
of  subjugation,  be  required  of  me,  then  I  can  never  become  rational  again 
without  adding  falsehood  to  cowardice.  It  smacks  too  much  of  the  out- 
rage of  '48,  when  I  was  compelled  to  admit  the  most  damnable  affronts 
as  delusive  impressions  of  my  senses  and  when  other  men's  infernal-pit- 
iniquity  was  alleged  to  be  the  offspring  of  my  own  tobacco-fume  !  This 
is  subjectivism  with  a  vengeance  !  It  is  too  big  a  pill  to  swallow.  It 
produces  rather  too  great  an  excess  of  abdominal  convulsions,  as  the 
Doctors  would  say. 

If  by  my  conduct  I  have  incurred  any  censure  or  violated  any  law, 
or  menaced  the  safety  or  the  life  or  property  of  any  man  in  or  out  of  the 
institution,  why  in  the  name  of  reason  and  of  common  sense  do  not 
these  gentlemen  proceed  in  the  regular  way,  to  secure  exemption  from 
the  fear  of  danger  ?  Could  they  not  have  legally  coerced  me  to  keep 
the  peace  ?  or  could  they  not  (a  still  more  rational  course)  have  requested 
a  committee  of  the  council  to  meet  for  the  purpose  of  examining  and  ad- 
justing a  matter  of  such  grave  importance  ?  Could  I  not  and  can  I  not 
now  expose  the  hollow  misery  of  the  sham,  the  real  nature  of  which  is 
as  plain  as  the  noon-day  sun  ?  The  course  they  have  adopted  is  surely 
derogatory  to  the  moral  integrity  of  the  parties  concerned,  and  my  stay 
among  lunatics  and  maniacs  is  an  unpardonable  abuse  of  an  excellent 
institution.  The  day  before  my  arrest,  eight  young  gentleman  volun- 
teered to  commence  the  study  of  the  language  which  I  more  especially 
profess  and  I  had  engaged  to  begin  with  a  public  lecture  in  the  Monday 
following.  These  proceedings  rob  me  now,  for  this  winter  at  least,  of 
the  only  advantage,  which  my  connection  with  the  institution  affords  me, 
and  it  is  manifest  enough  that  the  difficulty  was  "  got  up''  for  the  express 
purpose  of  anticipating  and  of  frustrating  my  preparations  for  the  pre- 
sent semestre. 

It  still  seems  to  me,  that  these  gentlemen  incriminate  themselves  in 
two  ways: — 1st,  By  desiring  me  to  remove  out  of  the  building,  they 
incur  the  suspicion  of  being  themselves  the  authors  or  abettors  of  the 
nuisance  I  complain  of.  I  would  propose  to  have  some  one  stay  with 
me  and  to  retain  and  pay  for  my  study  as  usual.  In  that  event  I  should 
have  a  witness  and  the  detection  and  punishment  of  the  offenders  would 
exonerate  all  those  who  in  case  of  my  removal  would  have  part  of  the 
criminal  credit  of  molesting  the  private  residence  of  a  professor  and  a 


29 

scholar.  2d,  The  fear  of  personal  injury  from  the  hands  of  one,  who 
for  many  years  past  has  been  known  to  be  a  man  of  peaceable  and  unex- 
ceptionable behavior  and  who  never  attacked  or  struck  any  man  in  his 
life,  appears  to  have  its  origin  in  a  consciousness  of  guilt  and  to  be  a 
virtual  admission  of  it.  Do  they  perhaps  think  their  conduct  so  out- 
rageous, that  the  meekness  of  Moses  could  no  longer  endure  it  without 
resentment  ?  I  grant  that  a  passionate  man  would  be  likely  to  take 
a  more  substantial  revenge.  I  myself  however  have  no  inclination  to 
degrade  myself  in  any  such  way. — My  confinement  is  on  a  false 
pretense,  and  if  any  made  affidavit  to  my  insanity,  they  most  assuredly 
must  have  perjured  themselves.  Whatever  I  did,  I  have  been  pro- 
voked to  do  by  what  I  deem  a  stupidity  and  a  flagrant  invasion  of 
the  rights  and  privileges  of  an  academic  instructor,  which  no  language 
can  castigate  with  adequate  severity. 

I  am  most  respectfully  and  truly 
your  obedient  servant. 

D.  A.  &  Co.,  NEW-YORK.  G.  J.  A. 


30 


VI.   THE  LAW  OF  INTELLECTUAL  FREEDOM. 

"  All  property  or  rather  all  substantial  determinations,  which  relate  to 
my  personal  individuality  and  which  enter  into  the  general  constitution 
of  my  self-consciousness,  as  for  example,  my  personality  proper,  my 
freedom  of  volition  in  general,  my  morality,  my  religion  are  inalienable 
and  the  right  to  them  is  imprescriptible." 

"  That  that  which  the  mind  is  per  se  and  by  its  very  definition  should 
also  become  an  actual  existence  and  pro  se,  that  consequently  it  should 
be  a  person,  capable  of  holding  property,  possessed  of  morality  and  reli- 
gion— all  this  in  involved  in  the  idea  of  the  mind  itself,  which  as  the 
causa  sui,  in  other  words,  as  a  free  cause,  is  a  substance,  cujus  natura 
nonpotest  concipi  nisi  existens.  (SPINOZA,  Eth.  S.  1.  def.  1.)." 

"This  very  notion,  that  it  should  be  what  it  is  through  itself  alone  and 
as  the  self-concentration  or  endless  self-retrosusception  out  of  its  mere 
natural  and  immediate  existence  contains  also  the  possibility  of  the  op- 
position between  what  it  is  only  per  se  (i.  e.  substantially)  and  not  pro  se 
i.  e.  subjectively,  in  reality)  and  vice  versa  between  what  is  only  pro  se 
and  not  also  per  se  (which  in  the  Will  is  the  bad,  the  vicious) ; — and 
hence  too  the  possibility  of  the  alienation  of  one's  personality  and  of 
one's  substantial  existence,  whether  this  alienation  be  effected  implicitly 
and  unconsciously  or  explicitly  and  expressly.  Examples  of  the  alien- 
ation of  personality  are  slavery,  vassalage,  disability  to  hold  property, 
the  unfree  possession  of  the  same,  &c.,  &c." 

"  Instances  of  the  abalienation  of  intelligent  rationality,  of  individual 
and  social  morality  and  of  religion  occur  in  the  beliefs  and  practices  of 
superstition,  in  ceding  to  another  the  power  and  the  authority  of  making 
rules  and  prescriptions  for  my  actions  (as  when  one  allows  himself  to 
be  made  a  tool  for  criminal  purposes),  or  of  determining  what  I  am  to 
regard  as  the  law  and  duty  of  conscience,  religious  truth,  &c." 
.... "  The  right  to  such  inalienable  possessions  is  imprescriptible,  and  the 
act  by  -which  I  become  seized  of  my  personality  and  of  my  substantial 
being,  by  which  I  make  myself  an  accountable,  a  moral  and  a  religious 
agent,  removes  these  determinations  from  the  control  of  all  merely  external 
circumstances  and  relations,  which  alone  could  give  them  the  capacity  of 
becoming  the  property  of  another.  With  this  abnegation  of  the  external, 
all  questions  of  time  and  all  claims  based  upon  previous  consent  or  ac- 
quiescence fall  to  the  ground.  This  act  of  rational  self-recovery,  where- 
by I  constitute  myself  an  existing  idea,  a  person  of  legal  and  moral 


31 

responsibility,  subverts  the  previous  relation  and  puts  an  end  to  the  injus 
tice  which  I  myself  and  the  other  party  have  done  to  my  comprehension  and 
to  my  reason,  by  treating  and  suffering  to  be  treated  the  endless  existence 
of  self -consciousness  as  an  external  and  an  alienable  object"* 

"  This  return  to  myself  discloses  also  the  contradiction  (the  absurdity) 
of  my  having  ceded  to  another  my  legal  responsibility,  my  morality  and 
my  religion  at  a  time  when  I  could  not  yet  be  said  to  possess  them  ration- 
ally, and  which  as  soon  as  I  become  seized  and  possessed  of  them,  can 
essentially  be  mine  alone  and  can  not  be  said  to  have  any  outward  ex- 
istence." 

"It  follows  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  that  the  slave -has  an  ab- 
solute right  to  make  himself  free  ;  that  if  any  one  has  hired  himself  for 
any  crime,  such  as  robbery,  murder,  &c.  this  contract  is  of  itself  null 
and  void  and  that  every  one  is  at  full  liberty  to  break  it." 

"  The  same  may  be  said  of  all  religious  submission  to  a  priest,  whc 
sets  up  for  my  father  confessor  (step-father,  &c.) ;  for  amatter  of  such  purely 
internal  interest  must  be  settled  by  every  man  himself  and  alone.  A  re- 
ligiosity, a  part  of  which  is  deposited  in  the  hands  of  another  is  tanta- 
mount to  none  at  all ;  for  the  Spirit  is  one,  and  it  is  he  that  is  required 
to  dwell  in  the  heart  of  man  ;  the  union  of  the  per  and  pro  se  must  be- 
long to  every  individual  apart." 


*  I  emphasize  this  important  clause  for  the  particular  benefit  of  those  who  in  my 
personal  history  have  had  the  absurd  expectation  that  I  should  continue  to  entertain 
a  respectful  deference  to  a  certain  phase  of  religionism,  which  upon  a  careful  and  ra- 
tional examination  I  found  to  be  worthless  and  which  is  repugnant  to  my  taste  and 
better  judgment,  and  of  others  who  with  equal  absurdity  are  in  the  habit  of  exacting 
ecclesiastical  tests  ( I  will  not  say  religious,  for  such  men  show  by  their  very  conduct 
that  their  enlightenment  in  matters  of  the  religion  of  the  heart  is  very  imperfect) 
for  academic  appointments ; — as  if  the  science  and  the  culture  of  the  nineteenth 
century  were  still  to  be  the  handmaid  of  the  church,  as  they  were  in  the  Middle 
Age ;  as  if  Philosophy  and  the  Liberal  Arts  could  ever  thrive  and  flourish  in  the  suffocating 
atmosphere  of  the  idols  of  the  cave,  the  idols  of  the  tribe,  and  the  idols  of  the  market-place  ! 


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